Spring Break recap and looking ahead

What a fun week!  We visited and reconnected with friends (and had a sleepover), went ice skating, attended a community festival, went to the park, went to the Children's Museum of Phoenix, played lots of Minecraft, cooked new recipes, and enjoyed each other's company.  Of course I had some work sprinkled in during the week, but I was able to do that from home and didn't have to go into the office.

Tomorrow school is back in session and there are only seven weeks left of the semester.  Also, we are two months away from hitting the road!  I am so excited, but I know it will come at us very fast and we have much to do before we leave.  Today I started listing all of the things we need to take care of....not least of which is doing our taxes, making some various doctor appointments for eyes and check-ups, shuffling personal property, and going to our land.  Husband will complete his first semester back to college and will have a few more credits on his transcript towards that computer science degree.  Brother will finish his first half semester as a fully home-schooled kiddo.  Sister is inching ever closer to being a 4-year-old!

Sequoia National Park

We've been talking about the National Parks more and more.  I found my collection of National Geographic maps and we posted many of the places we will visit this summer on our limited wall space.  The posted maps include the Southwest four corners states, California, the Pacific Northwest (which includes Wyoming and Yellowstone), the Northcentral states including South Dakota (where we will spend about a week with my parents and my sister's family seeing sights), and Michigan (our home state where we will spend about a month).  Our travel philosophy is that it is better to move less frequently and see fewer places in greater depth than to move frequently and get a glimpse of more places.  We will see how that plays out.  We are planning on spending about a week in each of the larger National Parks so we can really absorb these places with the kids.

Joshua Tree National Park

Looking back over this past week I can see a glimpse of our future - the four of us exploring this beautiful country together.  Learning, playing, talking, cooking, eating... being together.  It's been a long time in the coming, but here we are.  We are more and more settled into this RV life each day.  Getting on the road is the final piece of this adventure.  We have realized one dream - to have time and money to do things together as a family.  We are soon to realize a second dream - taking a twelve-week cross-country summer trip and visiting some of our National Parks.  There are tradeoffs for every choice we make in life, but I have to say that the it really seems that the 'cons' of this life are few and far between.  I have so much gratitude for this life and feel so fortunate to be sharing this adventure with my soul mate and the two best kids I could have ever imagined.  Life is so good.

Butterfly Mariposa Lily in Yosemite National Park